Tales of A Curley Sue

I don't want to just get by. I want to make my mark.

[talesofacurleysue]

So happy my mommy is here!! #mommasgirl #dreamgirls #broadwaybound (at Springer Opera House)

[talesofacurleysue]

So excited about seeing this new movie 💎In Search of Fellini💎 Who doesn't love a great coming of age story that involves food?!?! It's in theatres now!! Go see it! ⬆️⬆️Check out the link in bio for more information!!⬆️⬆️ @insearchoffellini @Nancy_Cartwright #InSearchOf #InSearchOfFellini #hbtsponsored #hbtfellini

[talesofacurleysue]

Had an amazing opening last night @springeroperahouse so happy to have my dad in from houston and for my in laws for coming! #broadwaybound #actor #dancer #livelaughlove #ootd #singer (at Springer Opera House)

[talesofacurleysue]

The first photo is before i started using the Dr Lancer Method and the second is two weeks after. I haven't been wearing make up for weeks. My skin is clear, hydrated and lookimg great! Like, share this post then go get your own Dr Lancer method for great skin. #livelovelancer #contest #complimentary #beforeandafter @drlancerrx @sephora @influenster

[talesofacurleysue]

Love how my skin is looking after 14 days of using the @drlancerrx method. A four part system that exfoliates, cleanses, and nourishes. I haven’t been wearing make up for weeks! My skin is hydrated and soft. I feel like my skin id bright and the under dermis acne, I had, has cleared up. The cleanser is so silky and I feel my under eye skin tighten. Can't wait to see what happens after a few more weeks of using this system. Thanks to Dr. Lancer and @influenster for the #complimentary sample.

[talesofacurleysue]

Love my @maybelline#citymini palette in #urbanjungle I received this complimentary to review for a #contest from Voxbox and Influenster.

[glassycolors]

You are valid

Happy Pride Month!!

[talesofacurleysue]

[talesofacurleysue]

Had a blast trying out my complimentary @marcjacobs Dew Drops Highlighter thanks to @influenster . It gave me a #coconutglow without over powering my goal of a natural, summer look. I definitely recommend this product to my make up loving friends! #coconut

[talesofacurleysue]

So Apparently We Are Mexican: Day 2 Cristela at the Improv

So among all of my doing things, I have completely forgotten to write. But I'm at least I'm out right and that's the whole point. Sunday night, my mom and I went to see our favorite, boisterous, head strong comediane at the Improv Houston. Cristela Alonzo, a native of South Texas and creator of her own hysterical yet recently canceled(sad sad day) sudo autobiographical television show. We fell in love with her when we saw previews and tuned in for her second episode. From then on we were hooked to her life as Mexican American woman who was working toward a law degree and a permanent job at her Dallas law firm. Her mother was crabby, her sister overbearing and brother in law vain as hell, which gave for some delicious comic relief especially when Gabriel Iglesias aka "Fluffy" would stop in for a visit. I was so excited to watch this show every week. It was canceled after one season. I definitely had a Streetcar, STELLA!!!! moment when I found out. At her show, we found out that when Netflix tried to buy it for more seasons ABC would not allow it. She went on to talk about her time as a 21 year old aspiring comedian living in her car in LA. Her tomboyish ways, coming into money because of her career and the passing of her mother. My mom and I were dying of laughter the whole way through. My constant clumsiness from spilling my first drink to our breaking of a table candle only added to it. We then had the pleasure of meeting her after the show. We gave her huge hugs which I'm sure she was tired of people touching her. I proceeded to fan girl then threaten to stalk her. Hopefully she won't put a restraining order out on me...

[talesofacurleysue]

My Week of Doing Things: Day 1

If you have read any of my posts, you know I can be terrible at finishing things. Though I am amazing at starting them. I'm working a twelve day job at the convention center. I'm under a non disclosure agreement...I can't talk about it. Feeling a bit cool about it right now. ;) Since I'm in the city, I wanted to take advantage and actually make my week productive and honestly just do things. Netflix and cheetos can do a number on your waistline and your goals. So last night starting my week of doing stuff. I know! Sounds super official and awe inspiring right?? It should probably just be called just get Courtney off her butt list. Last night, the besties and I ran our first Blacklight 5K Fun Run. If you haven't heard of these ridiculous events there are when thousands of people gather together to run through a parking lot, getting doused in powders of various colors and acting like it's a rave with djs and light up tutus. This ludicrous event did not start off my week of doing things on a great foot. There were too many people first of all. Hot and sweaty with no personal space. It took forever for the waves of people to go. We literally looked like herds of cattle being pushed to slaughter. Having been up since 5:45am, I was not having the amount of time it took to go through the events. It completely showed on my face and the grumpy in my voice. I could have been tired or just feeling old at my ripe 26 years. Also, I can't deal with the rave style outfits or music when we are running for "fun". All you fur covered, boot girls with your tutus...please sit down. The powder wasn't all that it's cracked up to be either. I wasn't covered in it by the end and it tasted horrible. Not that i sampled it, it unfortunately gets in your mouth very easily. Plus the race ended up just being the parking lot of the race park which was disappointing but the actual running wasn't horrible. Though, I can't lie I only ran the first mile. The last two were purely for show. My best friends and I decided that we had just signed up was half the battle. This definitely warranted us a strong pat on the back. We were really proud. :) But I put up the idea as traveling as a group instead of running as one. A little bit more expensive but certainly prettier scenery. On to the next one... Cristella at the Improv. Stay Tuned

[talesofacurleysue]

Meg Cabot, please be my friend

I am what you might call a book worm; an avid lover of literature; a wannabe literary maven and a self-proclaimed, whim seeking heroine. Though the Beast looked like a great guy, I was always more interested in Belle’s library. I have pledged a solemn vow to build a library worthy of a three story, rolling ladder that I can sing from. Goals people, goals!

Like any other aspiring entertainer, I am also a professional waitress. Give me a family of four with a screaming child, throwing fries and ordering nothing but water and I will smack a smile on my face, a southern twang to my voice and dive in. This time around, while juggling bookings, rehearsals for a children’s play and a growing spray tan business, Twin Peaks has been my restaurant home. Twin Peaks is like Hooters. If Hooters had ever left the 80′s, decided to move to Colorado and tried to “make it on her own” in a log cabin. Its not the highlight of my career but sometimes money is money.

Being in my soon to be late twenties, I have quite a few years on the recently graduated babes of the peaks. And long since the days are my incessant need to know every move that the Kardashians are making, which wife Lil Wayne is on or how to impress a boat shoe wearing, PBR drinking, pretty boy sitting at table 54. So alas my intellectual, conversational needs are not met.

Generally, one can always find a book in my wearing Coach tote. My boyfriend habitually mentions how heavy my bag is. I hate the thought of leaving the house without my goals journal or a book to lose myself in. The girls I work with find it amusing when they catch me reading #GirlBoss, Goals by Brian Tracy or anything by Meg Cabot. One of my personal favorites, she is my literary mentor which I am sure she is for many. She has no idea who I am but how I wish she did. I started reading her as a teen with her Mediator and Princess Diaries series. As I got older and started on her adult fiction, I fell even more in love with her voice, her writing and my desire to become a writer.

When you read her words, you hear your own idiosyncrasies, insecurities, desires, irrational thoughts and fears as well as your incomprehensible strengths and longing to know we are unique. I read her for inspiration, I read her to learn. I call to the romantic, literary fiction God, aka Meg Cabot, to deliver me from bad conversation and tortured, erroneous reads. I hope to one day share Pina Coladas with you as I pick your brain then ask to borrow your pencil.

Sincerely yours,

Courtney Locke

P.S. I need more Heather Wells in my life.

P.S.S. Please see above statement.

[talesofacurleysue]

F*&K Feminism

When you go from constantly feeling on top of the world to constantly feeling like you can’t get ahead, its debilitating. The want and desire to be successful is more like a constant pull at your heart. Asking, begging and pleading for the world like its easy to obtain. In the spur of things, it feels like it is. When you are just on the cusp of greatness, it feels like it. You literally feel like you can touch it, hold it and occasionally eat it; depending on the form of success you are trying to acquire. Though it can also occasionally be an ongoing reminder of your past failures, utter procrastinatory tendencies and love of repeating the same mistakes. And no matter how many times you watch The Secret; write down your goals; visualize your awesomeness and reassure yourself that past failures are setting you up with big time, future success...sometimes it just fucking hard to be so fucking optimistic all the fucccckkkking time.

But even as I write this, I know I will fall right back into my goal setting, optimistic ways because how else will I get anything else done? Certainly not sitting around making excuses for myself. Well maybe stand around making excuses but generally while I am working on something. I post pictures, watch videos, learn more about my craft and steadily work for the things I want because how else will I get them?

I have always been the girl that wanted wants everything. The moon, the stars, a million dollars in my bank account, regular trips to Greece with the girls and creating it all myself to boot. That is probably the worst decision I have ever made.

Other girls were smart. Jobs, college, direct sales jewelry jobs. They knew better. Here I am trying to do just short of ruling the world...which I want as well. I want to be one of the many biracial women to own my business, win a Grammy, Tony & Oscar, create an empire. Be the first to do something, be the second to continue something and be the third to ever write about it and throw it to the masses. Easy right?

F*$k feminism! I’m tired, overwhelmed, annoyed, undervalued, underpaid and the worst of it, I under value myself. I was not raised to be a house wife or a run of the mill young woman. Raised by a single mom who worked full time and a entrepreneurial father, I was programmed to learn everything, question most and above all else, succeed. Not because they would not love me if I didn’t but because I have a right and obligation to. My mother made raising me look easy which is how I know it was not. They both taught me, I could do anything; have everything and pass that on to others.

I saw F*$^k feminism, but its all I know. It is embedded in my heart. Not to demean my counter sex or my fellow sex but to succeed as a woman. To most of all, define what I believe my success is.

I am tired, overwhelmed, annoyed, undervalued, underpaid and I undervalue myself. But I will not except anything less than success. So I read, I fail, I learn, I fail again and I figure out a better way to succeed. I do not know any other way to be so I might as well give in, success is my beast and I am its prey.

[talesofacurleysue]

My amazing mom and I after tonight's show. She literally makes me cry everytime. #broadwaybound #chicago #inspiration #mamasgirl

[talesofacurleysue]

Tales of A Curley Sue turned 4 today!

[talesofacurleysue]

My To-Do List make To-Don’t Do Anything

I do not know what it is but I am terrible at accomplishing things. Even saying it allowed honestly surprises me. I am one of the most goal oriented people, I know and a hard worker. Though, my ex, who deems anything other than working manual labor not “work” would disagree.

I am a big fan of the to-do list, it is my way of acting like I am organized. Putting goals for the day in very specific, numbered order to signify their importance and my utter need to get them done has become a waste of my time.

As much as I would love to get every to-do list done every time. They seem now to just feed my anxiety like Seymour with his giant plant. Though personally, I do not see these goals as anything but reasonable and rational like losing 5 lbs... in a day, completing a chapter of hopefully one of many bestsellers, finishing an album that will in turn win me a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony (Yes I know, those are completely different categories but this is my delusional to-do list so no judging please) and simply making a million dollars by Sunday. Seems doable...no? 

I do not believe in small goals because small goals lead to small actions and I am just not that kind of person. I then continue to feed my procrastination, no sense of time and eagerness to have the world on a string by certain dates with my annual before my birthday list.

This kind of New Year, New Me resolution, that begins 2 months before each birthday, is also my form of midlife crisis. I think about everything I have done, which is no short list, and I proceed to demean everything on it and freak out. I always feel like I am not doing enough, that I have done enough and I am really ready to do more. So here is my annual before my birthday goals list:

1. Lose weight so I can shoot Jae Feinberg.

Though, I may never grace the pages of an Italian as a model (hint hint), I can at least have a goal and reach it. My body has always been something I have struggled with and I am hoping for this birthday, the struggle can be over just for a little while.

2. Record another amazing song.

I have had the pleasure of recording a song, I am super proud of. I would like to get half way there to finishing my EP. This year is all about finishing things.

3. Be on my way to getting my black belt.

A goal, I have had for years and I am tired of putting things off.

4. Pay off at least one CC.

I really like to shop...need I say more?

5. Finish a chapter.

Off anything I have started to write! I don’t need it to get published by tomorrow but it would be really nice to get it out of my head.

Self: Self!

Self: Yes, self?

Self: Challenged.

Self:... Challenged accepted ;0

[talesofacurleysue]

I wish I was older so I could be #younger

I blame my best friend, aka the blondie to my brunette, aka the yin to my yang, aka my get-a-away driver, for my new obsessions... one of them being TVLand’s new show, Younger. 

Starring Sutton Foster, Hilary Duff & Debi Mazar, Younger has now become the television highlight of my week. If you have not already seen it, Sutton Foster (the queen of Broadway) is a divorce going back to the workforce so she can afford her daughter’s out of the country, school program. When she can’t find one due to her aging status, she adds some definition to her hair, hits up a Blackbird resale shop and passes herself off as a 25 year up & comer. Sutton Foster kills it in this role. She is brilliantly funny as she tries to maneuver her 25 year old life while hints of decades past come creeping out with her mom genes and Punky Brewster references. But can I just say, as a twenty something, that I know who Punky Brewster, so if you don’t can you get some culture? Or at least have a marathon of I Love the 80′s. 

And yes people, VH1 still does exist.

Hilary Duff plays her “older” best friend and editor at a publishing house. Probably her best role ever, she has come a long way since Lizzie McGuire and we absolutely love her! She is smart and sassy, sexy and relate able. THANK GOD! We were getting worried Hilary Duff.

Debi Mazar is one of those faces who has been in Hollywood for forever but you can’t always think of what she has been in. Example 1: Entourage. You will recognize her voice before her face and her voice is undeniable. She always play the brass, loud mouth, don’t mess with me type. I love her for it. She is the voice of reason and vulnerability. She proves how girly and emotional a woman can be at any age.

I recommend this for any young woman and I can’t wait to read the book! Check your local listings and make sure to make a night of it with your girls when the new episode airs.